REVIEW: Summer Of ’84 (2018)

Most manly men, grew up with kid flicks like the Goonies or Gremlins, and since a few years it’s trendy in Hollyweird to make money with neo 80’s material.

I didn’t like much the neo 80ies stuffs involving kids as main characters I think they failed.From Super 8 to Stranger Things, or even the most over hyped flick of 2017 : Stephen King’s It. Hot Summer Nights had some qualities though.

At last I was pleasantly surprised to watch Summer of 84, lowering my guard as the flick was going on. Not only the production design and photography are nice, but the pre-teens looked real. Felt real. The only kid I’ve seen earlier was the main character in the fun flick The Baby Sitter. One of them is persuaded that his neighbor Mr Mackey, a cop, is a serial killer. Movie is set in a suburban cul-de-sac
reminiscent of the one in The ‘Burbs, you can tell, given the many references to that eighties gem that
the three Canadian directors loved it and wanted to pay respect.

So it’s low budget but doesn’t need a bigger one, you follow the 4 kids spying on Mackey and also live their everydays, life without internet but with porn mags, talkies and swearing all day. The movie manages to create a fun/ominous atmosphere all the way, and the nice synth wave score composed by Le Matos really helped.

If you don’t like synth wave you’re gonna suffer.

Some critics who hated the flick called the ending anticlimatic, but I wouldn’t use that word, it’s an unusual ending but boy, it worked for me. Not your formulaic ending like say, Disturbia. Ironically these critics loved Stranger Things…Which is logic in a way. ST is for pussies.